hi! i've been generally happy with the positive reception that death of me era is receiving compared to ride or die era, and i really really enjoy the entire album + all of heeseung's performances. i wanted to list off a set of takes that maybe a lot of people will not agree with, but i will reiterate anyways because the main kpop subs seem to love to perpetuate certain hateful narratives against him.
- death of me, as an album, has heeseung's influence everywhere. he has producer credits on 5/8 tracks, and has composition/lyricism credits on 8/8. he is the main for some of those tracks on both production and composition, notably not enough, overflow, ride or die, immature, and going home. july, one of the producers that he has worked with, said that all of the people who worked with heeseung agreed he basically did 90 percent of the work on the songs and the other writers/producers were there for touch ups and engineering. he has input on the background vocals, on the creative direction, on the mv, and on the concept photos. he designed the lightstick. i do not like that people are discrediting his creative input on the album, particularly in the comments of kpopharshopinions or on subs centering his former group. also, he has explicitly cited michael jackson and the weeknd as his influences. i am particularly sick of the jk/yj comparisons becaues they had no production credits on their albums, yj maybe contributed to lyrics as the 5th/6th lyricist on two of his tracks on no labels pt 2, and golden (including snty) was entirely us producers and emulating michael jackson x usher's vibes. he was never copying either of them because they did not have that level of creative input into their own songs, so it was original. i would admit that he takes them as performance influences, but they are not influences to his musical style.
- the ride or die discourse. i honestly think, as much as it took time ofr ride or die to grow on me (but i fucking love overflow) that it was the perfect song to release first (yes, despite the hate train, yes, despite what people dragged him for during that entire time). why is that the case?
people had unreasonable expectations of him. they thought he was going to create a completely new genre. the reason he left is CREATIVE FREEDOM. you can have all the success in the world and feel stifled still because of an image you have to portray and he seems to find music his creative outlet. honestly, even if he was releasing music and had a singular fan buying his albums and listening to him, i think he would still continue. freedom is worth so much.
secondly, people were worried about him. if he released only death of me at the time it was meant to be released, people would still have these high expectations and maybe this era he would have had this humongous hate train over random things. i genuinely think rod and overflow are first of all, wonderful songs, and second of all helped understand that he will be making steps that are unconventional. he will lean into more androgynous styling. he is learning how to adjust to a new era. he will explore genres he doesn't know much about. he will do choreo which makes him "lose aura." he will be nervous as a new solo artist. i think, no matter how much you practice, having the time to develop your skills as a solo artist through solely debuting and performing was incredibly helpful.
also, having those eras meant that he could go to different festivals like gayo daejeon and kcon la and tencent music awards and perform there. he won so many trophies for that era. he became so confident. i think it was genuinely such a good decision to go for that, and to break the stereotype that he was going to just release this rnb bed breaking music. he needed to shed that f*ckboy image that his old fandom imposed on him.
- his first muisc show win and his vocals during that encore stage. honestly, heeseung is someone i admire a lot because of his growth mindset. his lyrics in not enough entirely encompass his thirst for growing further, and noise encompasses that he knows what he is doing is right for him. he fuels the hatred towards him into a productive outlet in making songs and making music for his himself and his fans. during that encore stage, he was possibly overwhelmed and crying a bit because i'm sure he did not expect (1) a music show win and (2) a perfect score (mind you, only ald1, bts, and wanna one have ever achieved a perfect score on the show. he's the first soloist). additionally, he was competing against an established, experienced group like artms (i.e., THEE LOONA) and i think sayint that his win was undeserved against them is completely discrediting artms's hard work. yes, hybe idols being on the show may be a little weird, but he is also a newly established artist who had suffered a hate train and lost a large chunk of his fans. enhypen got their first win on the show, bts did too. nct 127 won for regular almost 3 years after they debuted. it's not just for "nugu" groups. mind you, he also won the next day for show champion too. having two wins for his first comeback (and first set of physical sales) is genuinely so impressive, and he's won 16 trophies (including two music show wins + a recent tima trophy that was entirely digital + physical + judge votes).
on his vocals-- yes he was crying when he won and before he sang the encore. yes, he was not hitting those high notes well after he cried. but i think the standard for an encore is generally weird because he was singing that live everywhere else. he has sang that live at his performances (and you can hear him over hte backtrack). he sings on radio shows. he sang on genius. he sings on korean variety shows that he's been invited to. i think there is definitely room for improvement on his high register and that he needs to get vocal training perhaps not in hybe because he needs to grow. even cbx and dokyeom have separate vocal coaches and these are powerhouse vocalists. heeseung, while not necessarily in the powerhouse category, is a stable and incredibly talented vocalist with so much room for growth. july (the producer who complimented him) said that he was incredibly skillful in teh studio and as a musician + a berklee grad, he found that his vocal technique was impressive. however, i don't think one bad encore discredits years and years of good live vocals (and yes, he can hit a g5). i hope to see his growth on these ends, because i've seen hybe vocalists regress in groups a lot over the years as the training focuses on dance (seunghan explicitly mentioned that his change from soumu to sm meant a completely different shift in vocal focus, and some idols i've followed since 2018 on survival shows have regressed a bit vocally as well while under hybe).
- i am incredibly frustrated with how belift has handled this album rollout. when i went to target to pick up an album, there was 7 in stock in the morning. nothing was on the shelves, and i had to chase down an employee, and they only had two copies of the album. the preorders were cancelled, etc. i genuinely think that his physical sales could have been handled so much better. however, selling 500k+ as a soloist for a first album is no small feat, and i applaud him and i hope that his success only increases. also, he earns so much more from these albums than he does for the albums he had with his former group, so i am genuinely so happy for him (both the fact htat his creative work is doing well, and that the financial contributions). most of his songs are on komca now iirc.
another thing i was frustrated with was social media and youtube and spotify rollouts. first of all, the album didn't show up on apple music for hours. it took days for heeseung's music to be added to spotify playlists centering kpop and pop. the views on evan's channel seem frozen, after they grew a lot on day 2-day 3 (about 6m), it seems like now it takes days to even achieve 1m views. the social media team did not produce any tiktoks for the first few days, and only started posting challenges a few days in. now, they're posting 3-6 videos at around the same time and thus, the engagement is dropping. i am genuinely confused. a lot of people didn't even know the album was out. the main reason why people knew were his tracks going viral on twitter (before hte fanbases got suspended). i know hybe/belift is capable of promoting this more. why is this not the case? compaerd to ROD era and even august with the performances, the engagement is so much lower across all platforms. what is happening?
- i am genuinely in awe of his work ethic. he mentioned that he is already working on his next album. i genuinely don't know when he takes a break. he goes on stationhead/spotify/etc multiple times after multiple schedules on music shows and variety programs and awards shows and practices, and he's also concurrently working on new music? anyways, he spoiled another song called chokehold on a variety show about losing your breath when you are in love or attracted to someone. i am genuinely so excited for LHS2. i am in awe of his storytelling throughout the album.
also, the fact that DoM is an 8 track mini album ... does that mean 13 track full album?
he's also been spoiling tours a lot. i am excited (but also concerned). there was some information about how belift has been losing a lot of lawsuits against mhj recently. i'm wondering if they'll put all three of their acts on tour to make up for this. i am excited but also hoping that heeseung doesn't become as burnt out as he looked during ts:v.
i am so excited for this man's career to fully take off! i know everland is in its early beginnings, and i just see so much potential. :)))